The Revenant’s 12 Oscar nominations will help make the epic survival tale a lasting calling card for Alberta’s talented crews and stunning scenery, says Calgary’s film commissioner Luke Azevedo.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s film, which has already won Golden Globes for best drama, director and lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio, earned the most Oscar nominations of any film shot fully or partially in Alberta. This is no small achievement given the province has a cinematic history that includes 1992’s Unforgiven, which received nine nominations, and 2005’s Brokeback Mountain, which received eight. Even 1966’s Doctor Zhivago, which used footage shot in Alberta, falls short of the record with 10 nominations.

While there will be no Alberta names on the Oscar ballots this year, the Academy’s recognition of the film’s production and costume designs, visual effects, makeup and hairstyling reflects the input of hundreds of local workers who, by all accounts, survived a challenging work environment during the lengthy shoot. The film is also up for best director, picture, editing, sound mixing and sound editing. DiCaprio is up for best actor, Tom Hardy for supporting actor and Emmanuel Lubezki for best cinematography.

“Projects don’t get done in this way unless you have the quality of that crew and talent and there was a lot of talent in front and behind the camera on this particular project,” says Azevedo.

More than 700 Albertans worked as cast or crew on The Revenant, shooting in Drumheller, Kananaskis Country, Dead Man’s Flats and areas near Canmore.

It also shot in Squamish, B.C., Montana and Argentina. The film began principal photography in October of 2014 and ran into August of 2015. Film industry website, The Wrap, reported in October that the film’s budget ballooned from $60 million to $135 million. Up to 20 local crew members were either fired or quit the project.

Canmore-based Sharon Toohey, The Revenant’s makeup department head, said the production was certainly challenging, but also an “incredible” and rewarding experience.

The Academy only awards three trophies in the hair and makeup category. DiCaprio’s personal makeup artists Sian Grigg and Duncan Jarman and Edmonton-born Robert A. Pandini, who headed the hair department for the film, are named on the Oscar ballot for Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling. But The Revenant had an international makeup and hairstyling team that included many locals.

Among the many challenges for Toohey was to make a frozen corpse look believable and to recreate Domhnall Gleeson’s beard, which the actor shaved partway through production to do a play in Ireland. At one point, she had to scale the side of a snow-covered hill with cast and crew. On top of that, Inarritu, who Toohey calls “a genius”, insisted on personally and painstakingly inspecting all makeup work that was to be on camera.

“I may not be getting an Academy Award, but at least I know that Alejandro — a very visual director — approved all my makeup,” she said.

“Creatively, it was amazing. All the makeup we got to do, I just loved it.”

Calgary’s Jo-Dee Thomson, who worked with Pandini as key hair stylist on the film, said Inarritu had high expectations for all crew members. Actors could be returned to makeup and hair four or five times before his standards were met.

“I honestly do not have a bad word to say as far as my personal experience, I thought working with him was amazing,” Thomson said. “Yes, he would critique things and give you direction but it was to get to the final product that he had envisioned and it was up to us to try to achieve that look. It was a collaboration and you need that input. You can’t take offence to that input, you have to take it and fix it or make it better.”

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The Revenant, Alberta's most Oscar-nominated movie, a testament to province's film workers

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